The invention relates to portable carriers or organizers for holding and transporting articles.
Projects, such as house repair projects, typically require multiple articles for the project. For example, in a painting project, paint brushes, paint cans, a stirrer, a screw driver or other can opener, and tape is oftentimes needed. Also useful in painting and other projects is a roll of paper towels. These articles oftentimes have to be moved from an initial area, such as a storage area, to the work area, such as the room to be painted. In addition, the articles oftentimes have to be moved within the work area. It is therefore desirable to have a carrier or organizer to hold the articles and to transport them.
Most of the conventional carriers do not include a structure that dispenses rolled material such as paper towel. Those carriers that have a dispenser, however, lack a guide that sufficiently holds the rolled material in place while it is dispensed. This deficiency makes it difficult to dispense rolled material.
Other traditional carriers are designed for specific purposes, such as for carrying swimming pool equipment. Still other existing carriers are designed for carrying cleaning supplies. It is difficult to adopt these specific-use carriers to other purposes.
Previous patents describing such carriers include U.S. Pat. No. 3,887,103 to Spooner; U.S. Pat. No. 4,720,021 to Byrns; U.S. Pat. No. 5,839,771 to DeMars; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,035,321 to Denton.
The invention, which is defined by the claims set out at the end of this disclosure, is intended to solve at least some of the problems noted above. A carrier is provided that includes a rear compartment and a dispensing cradle for dispensing rolled material such as paper towels. The dispensing cradle has a guide wall including an elongated opening defined therein and through which the rolled material is fed. The dispensing cradle is in front of and connected to the rear compartment. The carrier also has a forward compartment in front of and affixed to the dispensing cradle.
Also provided is a carrier for holding articles having a rear compartment and a dispensing cradle for dispensing rolled material, the dispensing cradle having a guide wall having an elongated opening through which the rolled material is fed. The elongated opening of the guide wall is at least a long as the width of the rolled material. The dispensing cradle is located in front of the rear compartment. The carrier also has a forward compartment in front of the dispensing cradle and a handle that is affixed to the rear compartment.
The carrier described herein can be used for virtually any task in which a user desires to organize and/or transport items. The carrier is particularly useful for purposes such as painting. When used in a painting job, the carrier can hold and transport painting equipment and supplies.
The carrier has multiple sub-compartments to organize and store items transported with the carrier. For example, dry paint brushes can be placed in one sub-compartment, whereas wet ones can be kept in another. As another example, tape that is used to protect molding or windows can be placed in another compartment or in the same compartment that the dry paint brushes are in.